Federal officials finalized plans today to boost logging in a huge swath of Western Oregon forests, overriding Gov. Ted Kulongoski's request to delay approval of the controversial plan until the Obama administration could weigh in.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management's forest management plan, five years in the making, would double allowable logging on about 2.6 million acres of forests, most in the coast range south of Salem. It would create 1,200 new jobs, the BLM estimates, and increase timber-related payments to 18 rural Oregon counties

Kulongoski asked the BLM earlier this month to delay the plan, saying that it needed more public input and more evaluation under the federal Endangered Species Act to avoid being stymied by lawsuits from environmental groups. But BLM officials declined, instead choosing to meet a Dec. 31 deadline included in a settlement agreement with the timber industry.

The governor has said he wants a plan to move forward to benefit strapped counties, make forests less susceptible to fire and create jobs. But Kulongoski is "outraged" by the agency's lack of response to his concerns, spokeswoman Anna Richter Taylor said.

"Instead of a resolution, it virtually guarantees continued litigation," she said.

The BLM's plan marks the biggest long-term change in logging practices since the Clinton administration's 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. Any litigation could delay increased logging in the near future.

Clinton's plan was supposed to end the Northwest's timber wars, but logging fell well short of projections. In 2003, the timber industry and the Bush administration agreed to revise the BLM's logging blueprint.

The new BLM plan gives logging a higher priority than in national forests managed by the U.S. Forest Service. It calls for about 500 million board feet of logging a year, well above current levels, but less than the 1.2 million board feet the timber industry says grows on the land.

BLM officials said today that Kulongoski raised valid concerns. But they didn't address potential conflicts with state policy, the only legal basis for the governor to challenge the plan.

"None of the issues he raised had anything to do with consistency with state plans," said Michael Campbell, a spokesman for the bureau's Oregon office.

Environmental groups said the plan brushed aside the concerns of government scientists. In March, a panel of federal and state scientists issued a thick report critical of the BLM's plan, known as the Western Oregon Plan Revision.

Oregon Wild says the plan would promote clear cuts and eliminate 96,000 acres of old growth over 100 years.

The agency illegally chose not to review the plan under the Endangered Species Act, Stahl said, after BLM's own staff issued at least one draft report indicating that three species of fish could be harmed by increased logging, he said. His group obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act request.

"Everything was on track (for an endangered species review), and then the plug was pulled," Stahl said.

Campbell of the BLM said the agency chose to forgo a "speculative" endangered species review on the overall plan but will pursue it when specific logging, thinning and habitat projects are proposed. "It's very difficult for any scientist to analyze a plan that doesn't call for specific on-the-ground action," he said.

The BLM's final plan is less generous to the timber industry than its first draft in 2007, with logging reduced and stream protection expanded. It defers logging of trees 160 years or older for 15 years.

Tom Partin, president of the Portland-based American Forest Resource Council, said the plan doesn't allow enough logging. His group has sued to reduce the amount of land set aside to protect spotted owls.

But the BLM made "exhaustive efforts" to study how the land should be managed, Partin said, and the plan will increase jobs in a down economy.

The next move belongs to the Obama administration. It will have to decide whether to implement the plan as is, abandon it, or try to forge a compromise amid likely lawsuits.